for the fallen ones, locked away
by BiblioMatsuri
Summary: Five points of view on the night before the guillotine fell; and then, they all meet in a bar. / A set of character studies from during and after the Soul Society arc in AnotherSpoonyBard's Chaos Theory AU. All titles from Panic! At The Disco's "This Is Gospel".
1. conspire against the odds

Whew... This one is definitely set in CTverse proper, though not necessarily canon to it. I started writing this way back when _The Butterfly Effect_ was being posted, and I've been adding to and editing it ever since. I think it's ready to post now. I hope.

The first five POV sections are all set right before Rukia's planned execution in TBE; they're slightly out of chronological order. The last one is a missing scene from chapter 6 of The _Three-Body Problem_ , so watch out for spoilers if you haven't read that far.

* * *

The Kurosaki house is distinctly out-of-place against the feudal-era backdrop of Soul Society. You're still thinking about how it got this way, but – you have far, far more urgent problems than your enemies' social injustices.

Well, Soul Society's rot is _exactly_ the root cause of why you're here; but, you aren't _that_ reckless. You're a lone infiltrator, not an army in one-self. You're going to get in, get Rukia, and get out. Everything beyond that is the shinigamis' problem.

(Maybe if you keep telling yourself that, it'll make it easier to not think about how at least nine-tenths of the afterlife is a godforsaken slum. Where human potential goes to die, has died, is dying. It's none of your business.)

You've been trying, but you haven't been able to get to sleep.

You push the covers aside. The Kurosaki house has several unused guest rooms, each equally small and clean and nondescript. Hospital rooms, really – which is likely a necessity, as this clinic is almost certainly the closest anyone in Rukongai will ever get to an actual hospital.

Before the sun rises tomorrow, you'll be off to pick a fight with people who knowingly and willingly perpetuate disgusting abuses of power and systemic oppression. You're not going to walk out alive, not if you let your guard down for a second. That is a problem.

You have backup. You have Yoruichi, who is definitely a former shinigami; and you have Kurosaki-san, who just _happens_ to be potentially useful in navigating Seireitei. Right.

You have a chance. Finding Rukia-san, getting her free – _that's_ your problem, now.

This whole situation looked so much simpler from far away.


	2. I never was yours

You never asked to be saved.

You never asked to be brought up from the base earth of Inuzuri that had ground itself into you, to have your dirt and noise and scars washed away. You never asked to be made Kaien-sama's disciple; and then, you found yourself thus – you would have taken a broken man over a dead friend, when it happened. You never asked for Kuchiki-sama's protection, or wished for any patronage. You never wanted a place in the bright-blinding sun, or this silent loneliness, or those days without end.

You did not ask to be rescued by a child-hero, as though you were a princess of a child's story – in truth, not only in name.

You never asked for Ishida-san's friendship. You would never beg another's devotion, not even at your worst and weakest.

You didn't ask for Renji's silence. You really never asked for Ishida to follow you into the land of the dead, two steps too slow. Everyone must die; and so you will go to your death, in deference of the law. You have sinned, so you will go to your well-earned end with your eyes open.

You do not ask to be saved.


	3. end of the world

Her cell should be cold. White things are always cold: like boiled-clean cloth for bandages, drying in the winter sun, or like new snow.

She should be bright, like the moon, or the color of sunlight-on-snow just before it blinds you. Rukia was always a little winter-y, in an okay way. She's always been this kind of pure and unchangeable, somehow new and clean, even when you and her had to live in the dirt and rot and the stink of assholes who don't care about anything but themselves.

You've never actually seen _white_ snow, before the Seireitei and Shinou and everything. Sure it _looked_ clean, up in the air with the clouds – but as soon as it hit the ground, everything just turned to slush. You'd never noticed, not when you were kids and that was all you knew. Not when the dirt ground into her white white skin, gumming her hair into thick wads. Everything in Inuzuri was and is and will always be filth.

Rukia was always made for this, you thought. She's brilliant, and strong, and so _good_. She'd be great as a shinigami – a great shinigami, not like the jackshit-useless thugs who maybe sometimes go as far as the outer districts to wipe their feet on the locals, once or twice every hundred years or so.

No one was brave in Inuzuri, not before her. _Brave_ was just another word for a sucker, for fresh meat, for the weak. You belong with Rukia _just_ as well as you fit here in Seireitei.

What were you ever good for, besides sticking with her back when she still needed you? The nobles want her, and Kuchiki-taichou's claim will always beat yours just from Kuchiki-taichou _existing_. You're a worthless stray dog, and Rukia's the Kuchiki princess. Two plus two is four, right? You've got enough fingers to count that high. Your job is done.

...if Kuchiki-taichou didn't even _want_ her, why the fuck did he take her?

Rukia breathes in suddenly, rattling, like her body's just remembered she's still alive.

You think she looks maybe a tiny bit less tense, after you've been here with her for a bit. It's probably all in your head, just like Kuchiki-taichou caring about anyone, just like your dumb ass being worth anything.

Fuck. Fuck.

What good is everything you've done, what good are all your passing grades and promotions and rules memorized, when it was always always gonna end here with Rukia dying alone? In a cold alley, starving to death in the muck – or on a high gallows, burning everything she ever was down to nothing, forever. It didn't matter, you'd thought.

When you were kids, you knew you'd die in a second so she could live, the same way you _knew_ she wouldn't even let you try something that stupid. Self-sacrifice is for those suckers who have enough to throw _anything_ away. And you know what, you're going to fucking _kill_ that little Quincy bastard for giving Rukia someone else to break her heart over – _now_ , of all the damn times.

You wanted to _help_ her.

You should have known. That fucking Kuchiki prince already saved her once, and that's one more happy ending than Rukongai brats ever get. No one's coming. No one is dumb enough to be brave, not in Seireitei.

Brave only ever gets people dead, as in gone, as in _fucking dead_. Just let it end. Just... just let Rukia not be in pain anymore. You can't save her from pain, so the least you can do is get one back at the little shit who's hurting her this time. She shouldn't be hurting like this. You hate doing this – just sitting here and not-looking at Rukia, who's looking out that stupid goddamn window, who's waiting for some stupid brave kid to swoop in and get his ass killed.

The least you can do is kill him first. She shouldn't have to keep waiting for nobody to come.


	4. beat of my heart

In the beginning, Daddy had you two and Mama had _onii-chan_ , and everybody knew where everybody belonged: Karin hiding behind Daddy's legs; you climbing on his shoulder, trusting he would catch you if you fell down. And _onii-chan_ with one hand caught in Mama's free hand – his left hand twisting the hem of his shirt into knots; her right hand gently curling around empty air.

It would be a horrible lie to say you don't miss them, but you were young when Mama and _onii-chan_ died. Karin and you were only eight; still children.

You were young enough that when you came to Soul Society, you mostly only thought of it as moving to a new city. You didn't understand until later that this was the afterlife; that this sunlit little house, with its creaky old-looking floors, was the next-best thing anyone could ever get to heaven. That everyone here – your new neighbors swapping stories with Daddy, and the old grandmothers selling produce at the open-air market, and the other children kicking a ball around with Karin – all of these people are among the already-dead, in a way.

Death is a lot like life, it turns out. When Daddy's patients die, he goes solemn and quiet in just the same way.

It helps a bit sometimes, knowing that the heaven Mama and Ichi-nii won't see for a long long time (if ever) was only ever a strange city.

You still wish you could get a little more help around the house, sometimes. You are happy to have Ishida-san's help, even if you do find it a little strange to let a guest help out in the kitchen. You've had near-strangers in the house sometimes – usually because Daddy's patients don't have much to pay with, and Daddy doesn't always or even often treat people for free, so they wind up doing odd jobs for us in exchange. Usually it's outdoors work, though, like weeding or washing the windows. The kitchen is your space.

It's late to have just begun cooking dinner, but today the clinic has been extra busy: Oikawa-san's throat infection, Nakano-san and his friends needing patching up after a fight, Harumi-chan being brought in with second-degree burns... it all just piles up sometimes.

You like working with Ishida-san, though! You like to like people, and that's easy, because you treat everyone nicely and they're nice to you back. Most people are nice. You like to be nice, even when someone is being rude to you. You honestly don't want to hurt anybody's feelings, not even when they're pushing into the little space you've made for yourself in this firelit kitchen. This is your place.

You hide the nervous little smiles that keep bubbling up your throat, scraping your nerves; folding them into the polite smiles you wear for patients and clients and visitors.

He's quite polite, and very helpful. You've already asked if he's sure he wants to help; and yes, he's sure.

You want to like Ishida-san. He's the first Quincy you've met since your mother died; you think he might be _like_ her in ways that you aren't sure you quite understand yet - or you might just be reaching. He's quiet, a bit morose, and stiff-still. He tells you he enjoys sewing, and you quietly compare the cut and stitching of his clothes to yours. He cooks for himself and his landlord and everyone else in the building, and he always does his share of the chores, and he says that he could live alone easily. You think that he and Karin could be good friends – if he wasn't set to leave so soon, if she wasn't too busy with her own life to talk.

Right now, on the other side of the living room wall, Daddy is also working hard. He's talking to the people who are going to save Ishida-san's shinigami friend, making plans. Karin is acting as though she doesn't care enough about _anything_ to even try to listen in.

You just do what you can, the same way you always do.

You scrape sliced onions off the cutting board and into the pot, and you take no satisfaction in how Ishida-san flinches from the spray. It's just a little boiling water, after all; and maybe a little bit of weak acid.

Nothing at all.


	5. the fear of falling

You've never been good at _subtle_. Definitely not when you were a kid, and you could go cry into someone's shirt whenever you felt like it; you'd cling to Mom's blouse, or Dad's coat, or even Ichi-nii's brightly-colored kiddie-clothes. And with Ichi-nii, you'd always just set each other off and turn into a puddle of crybabies.

Ichi-nii had nightmares, you remember. He was always scared of something: scared that bigger kids would tease him, scared when you or Yuzu would get sick, scared of everything in the whole damn world-

Except Mom. Mom was every bit of sunshine in the world. Even Ichi-nii couldn't be afraid of her.

You remember that Mom had a smile for every little thing that ever happened. It's like she was always happy; like she was so happy, she couldn't hold in all the happy. Yuzu's happy now, mostly, but she's super-quiet about it. She never laughs out loud; she giggles, or titters, or hides her mouth with her hand. Her smiles are always closed-lipped, always perfectly nice, just like Mom was.

But Mom's smiles were wider. Her laugh was louder. Mom looks so tiny in photographs (especially next to your overgrown musclehead of a dad) but you'll always remember Mom as a warmth that covered your entire world – as happy, as bright, as the sun.

A draft rattles the window, and cold-wet midnight air blows in right over your face. You make a face and get out of bed. You should be asleep by now; you've got lessons from Kuukaku-neesan and a shift at the clinic tomorrow, just like every other day – but some nights, you just can't. And now that you're up, you might as well see if you can get the damn window to close the rest of the way.

Probably it's just that the frame slipped out of its groove again. It's been doing that since spring, especially on the extra-humid nights. You think the wood might be cracking a little; on the inside, where it's harder to see the damage.

It's not the frame – or not the part you can see from here, anyway. The glass has a few hairline cracks in it, right near the bottom. You can just barely feel with your fingers where the cloudy pane is grinding itself down, collecting dew, eventually rotting the wood. There's really no point worrying about how it happened, but you might've kicked the ball around too hard during last week's pickup game.

You should tell Goat-face to deal with the window. Sooner or later, he'll have to get around to getting his hands on whatever we need for repairs or replacements. Yuzu could do it, but you don't want to bother her. She already does everything _inside_ the house. He can help out and handle the outside repairs.

You mean, you'll still _help_ if he tells you to, but this isn't really your thing. You're a lot better at breaking stuff than you'll ever be at fixing things, and you're okay with that. Yuzu's the healer in the family, even though Dad's the doctor; you just stand around and fetch supplies when they need it.

No other house you've seen in Rukongai actually has glass windows. You (by which you mean your beardo dad) had to get these brought in special, and you don't think much of the stuff _in_ this house is exactly legal either, not the way beardo tries to keep you from seeing the records. Like Yuzu doesn't know every inch of this place better than he does?

Well, at least you didn't wake her up with all this dumb racket.

You walk off down the hall, aiming for Dad's study. The room you share with Yuzu is okay, but the hallway floors are loud and creaky all over. Even after five years here, you still miss and step on the loud spots sometimes - especially when you're trying to get around in the dark. Going for a late-night drink of water or a bathroom break can just turn into this whole huge production. For such a loud-ass old goat, your dad sure is good at picking up tiny noises; he's never actually needed an excuse to go from sleeping like a log to hug-tackling you, from one second to the next.

...he won't be sleeping yet, or even loudly faking sleep. Whenever something happens that reminds him this much of Mom, he winds up in the living room confessing what-the-fuck-ever-he-talks-about to Mom's memorial shrine.

Her body was dealt with back in Karakura town, cremated and then buried, same as everyone else who dies there. You still don't know what happened to her soul, and you're not asking. Eventually the Hollow that ate Mom and Ichi-nii is going to get purified, somehow sooner-or-later, and then she and Ichi-nii will wind up in different parts of Rukongai with no memory of each other.

Yuzu and you and Dad are already here, so maybe you'll even find them someday. Right after pigs fly in hell.

You pretend not to see him: his pointless words, his old-new clothes, his weirdly not-crying face. Dad never could cry quietly, and you're sure he doesn't want to wake Yuzu any more than you do.

Or bother your mystery guest, you guess. (Emphasis on the mystery, ugh.) You want to ask him about the Quincy, about Mom's people, about all the things Goat-face can't tell you – but you _can't_. He's here on an actual important mission, not to trade gossip with his contact's kid. You can't even talk to him; the guy's as approachable as a glass wall.

You're pretty sure that Yoruichi-san knows what your dumbass dad is doing, but she's not going to do anything. Considering those times she's snuck up on you, or surprise-hugged whoever was least likely to want it, she's weirdly good about giving other people space for their dead.

Kuukaku-neesan's gonna be down in her workshop, wherever that is this time, double-checking her calculations for tomorrow's crazy-plan-of-the-day. You wanted to ask, but you didn't. It's better if you don't know and can't spill the beans, especially since there's nothing you can do to help.

With so many Shiba relatives around, Goat-chin and Kuukaku-nee and even stupid Boar-butt, you know whose annoyingly loud-ass temper you got. You're not subtle, but you can be quiet.


	6. the best of us yet

Karin is learning so many new things tonight. _So many_ things – like how loudly the higher-ups can whine about paperwork, and how sometimes they slip in some company gossip and office politics bullshit, and how alcohol can do a lot to smooth over awkward meet-and-greets. She doesn't think _everyone_ is trying to get drunk – maybe it's just having-something-to-do-with-your-hands that's the appeal?

Hisagi is blocking her view of Uryuu a bit, but the stickman's just as tense as she thought he'd be ...so. Freakin' nerd, he needs to _talk_ to people more.

Yuzu looks happy, at least. Still kind of on edge, but a lot better than she was in class with Fujita and Moribito. Good.

Yuzu is happy to meet new people, especially nice people who aren't judging her for living in Rukongai before.

She's not sure when the clinic, and Daddy, and patching up his patients, became 'before'; it's not anything like _before_ , but – still. She's not really sure how and when she changed so much, but she's sure that half a year ago she never would have gone to a bar: not even a nice one like this, not even with friends, not even with family.

Karin is fine, but Uryuu keeps not-looking at the exit. She's not sure how to help. It would be _so_ rude to leave early. Oh, she really should have asked someone about drinking etiquette earlier. Maybe Matsumoto-fukutaicho – who is getting _very_ drunk, so no; but, maybe Abarai-fukutaichou might have some advice? She doesn't really know anyone else here that well...

Renji's somehow gotten sucked into an argument about the differences between iaijutsu and battoujutsu with a certain tiny Shinou student. Well, she's a tiny zanjutsu _prodigy_ , so it's a little less all-around-embarrassing for him, maybe. Across the table, Hisagi's drunk enough to forget not to stare at Matsumoto's boobs (she's just laughing at him, of course). Kira's got his hand over his face, but Renji's pretty sure that's either 'I am embarrassed to admit I know you people' or 'I am about to pass the fuck out right here at the table again.'

Well, if he wasn't stuck on babysitting duty, he'd probably have had a lot more than two cups of sake himself. ...Matsumoto's got her hand on the other sister's arm, not looming so much as clinging, and she's telling _stories_. Renji's heard this one before, and he's really not drunk enough to laugh at his own past embarrassing fuck-ups yet.

He leans over and steals the sake jug from Kira.

Rukia, for herself, has again discovered a kind of uncomplicated joy.

Her oldest and first friend, once family, is with her again. Her work-friends and peers are all gathered around the table, trading jokes and training tips and hey-have-you-heard-about-this stories. Her elder brother, while certainly not _here_ in an only-slightly-disreputable Rukongai bar, is not her enemy anymore – he's a sure supporter. The Thirteenth is as much her home now as it was Kaien-sama's, once.

Her newest friend, and in a way one of the closest, is sitting off to the side. Hiding. She wishes he'd let himself be happier here, even if only just for a little while. Soul Society has its bright spots, if he'd just let himself see.

Uryuu shifts uncomfortably in his seat, unused to any kind of communal setting. He's not quite welcome in the mess; and while he'd attended public school in the living world, he'd preferred to eat alone, never allowing himself to be sucked into the seemingly endless vortex of petty student politics.

He had always held himself apart, before, as a protector of those small souls who _could not_ see the very real dangers they faced. He had never shirked in his duty: from hunting down Hollows, to simply driving them off with nonlethal hits until they fled the city or were purified – whichever came first. He really didn't care. It had never been a loss.

Uryuu is thoroughly distracted from his worries by Abarai tipping over the sake jug, spilling it all over the table. Rukia drags Abarai to his feet, informing the party that drinking night was over once the drinks were done. Matsumoto's wobbly protest that she can most _definitely_ drink more is gently overruled by Yuzu gently herding her towards the door.

Karin looks amused. At least someone had fun tonight.

* * *

This is the +1 chapter set in TTBP chapter 6, told in revolving third-person POV instead of a single second-person POV - so yes, I'm aware of the POV switches.

Thoughts? Comments?


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